April 2014 NPD: PS4 Top Seller for 4th Straight Month

The April 2014 NPD brings great news for Sony, as the PlayStation 4 topped the hardware charts for the fourth consecutive month according to NPD analyst Liam Callahan.

“Sony’s PlayStation 4 was the No. 1 platform for hardware sales in April for the fourth month in a row, followed by Xbox One,” said Callahan. For what it’s worth, Microsoft confirmed that they sold 115,000 Xbox One consoles in April.

In all, hardware brought in $192.8 million for the games industry in April 2014, a 76 percent increase over the $109.5 million for hardware in April 2013.

Meanwhile, Titanfall tops the software charts for a second consecutive month following a release on Xbox 360. Sales on Xbox 360 must have been substantial — according to Sony executive Guy Longworth, “Infamous: Second Son was the top-selling new-gen software title in April,” despite the fact that it fell off the top 10 completely.

$227.9 million was spent on new physical games, which is down 10 percent from $254.3 million last year. Of course, it’s always worth noting that NPD reports only track physical games sold in stores; digital goods on services like PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, as well as physical games sold at online retailers like Amazon and Newegg, are unaccounted for.

Interestingly, the Xbox 360 boasts the best-selling version of every game on the list — except for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, where the PS4 version came out on top. MLB 14 The Show for PlayStation 3 and Vita is also notably absent from the top 10, but Sony have already painted a fascinating picture for next month’s report — MLB 14 on PS4, released on May 6th, is the fastest-selling entry in the franchise’s history, suggesting that the current-gen version is outselling the last-gen game despite a substantially smaller install base.

The April 2014 NPD report provides yet another snapshot of the industry in North America for everyone to get worked up in a tizzy about, but what do you make of the numbers? The comment section awaits your input.